FOR all of Brendan Rodgers’ admiration for players with talent and technique there is another quality he rates just as highly.

FOR all of Brendan Rodgers’ admiration for players with talent and technique there is another quality he rates just as highly.

A value that cannot be taught or moulded on the training fields of Melwood or in a tactics meeting at the team hotel before an away game.

But a trait which some have in abundance and others struggle to find.

As the Liverpool manager sifted through the wreckage of Boxing Day’s defeat to Stoke City, a chastening loss, he knew ultimately what was missing.

There was no element of surprise that caused the Reds’ undoing at the Britannia Stadium but, worryingly, simple errors at key moments of the match which caused most concern.

But also for Rodgers, there was insufficient character.

There was plenty of energy and aptitude but when they needed to bite down on their gumshield and fight it out, the manager did not see enough of his players respond.

Luis Suarez ran himself to a standstill and Steven Gerrard, picked out by the manager, refused to relent but where they led by example few too many followed suit at a ground where battling it out is par for the course.

"The goals were disappointing," the manager reflected. "I analysed the game and our effort and work rate were fine but in key moments of the game you have be better than we were.

"When you are playing Stoke, there are three key things you focus on in your preparation: make sure you don’t get done with the long ball and pick up the second ball; you have to get tight on corners; and make sure you are organised for the second and first ball at throw-ins.

"We got done on all three.

"That goes back to the consistency I’ve been talking about. There’s no question we have players with character but it can’t be on tap.

"You can’t just turn it on when you want and then it goes back off again. It has to be on all the time if you want to progress.

"If a club is paying top dollar for top players, then you have to produce. It’s as simple as that.

"That’s what we have to get to, that consistency in our game. And that’s something I know we will get to."

It has been the buzzword around the Liverpool manager for some time now.

He talked about it after the loss to Aston Villa, the win over Fulham and now in the aftermath of a humbling defeat to Stoke.

Rodgers will continue to hammer home the message until Liverpool are right.

Like most managers – bar the exceptionally lucky few – he admits to not fully knowing what to expect from his side at the moment.

"That’s always in the back of your mind," he said. "There will be games you will go into as a manager and think you always have that little question mark of I wonder what I’m going to get?

"Like against Aston Villa. If you had said to me before the Aston Villa game, I would have said our confidence is high, we had consistency, we were doing great. If you had asked me what we would get, I would say we were as good as we have been, but we were no good. We had a poor result.

"Sometimes you don’t know. But hopefully over time if you have a group who are stable and consistent, then there comes a point when you know what you’re going to get.

"At times they will drift away from that because it’s natural, that’s life. But you will know once you’ve got that, what you’re going to get."

But, he added: "This is a brilliant group who have given me everything. I watched the game the other night and I can’t fault the work rate of them. We have just missed out in a couple of key moments in the game and it’s ended up costing us.

"Like we’ve seen against Villa and Stoke, if you don’t do the job consistently, you’ll get punished for that.

"That’s my job to see if we can improve that level of consistency and mentality in the team. But unfortunately you can’t cure it all because a lot of it is about character and the types of character you have."

There is little denying that Liverpool have relied upon teenagers far more than anyone could have imagined.

The average age of the side which faced Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road last season was around 27 years - it is likely to be even younger on Sunday.

"That’s the job for me to educate us as a club for to understand it’s going to take a mixture of both young players and senior players," he said.

"If you look at the top end of our pitch, Luis Suarez, who has been brilliant, has for most of the season, bless him, been surrounded by young players.

"They are up-and-coming young players, but those positions are the positions that make the difference.

"The number 10 role Jonjo (Shelvey) has played a lot in this year, and he is 20. Raheem (Sterling) is 17 just turned 18. Suso is 18. It’s a big ask for young players to carry that can.

"There’s no doubt they’d have gained a lot in terms of growth from this period, but for now we need that support to help us to push on.

"I’m all for young players, I want to develop them.

"But I also know as a manager that there needs to be the right mix and that will be important for us.

Rodgers concluded: "We’ve got young players who I’m not sure would get the opportunities at any other team in the Premier League.

"We have had to play them at one of the biggest clubs in the world.

"That will benefit us going forward.

"The biggest thing we will have gained I think is hope. There’s hope here with the players that we have.

"If we can add the right types of players into our way of working then we believe we have got a game that can really affect the top end.

"We might not have had the results against all the big teams but our performance level has been impressive in some of them.

"If we can add quality to that and a wee bit of experience that can set us up.

"The biggest thing of all for me will be hope.

"For me it’s the most important attribute. If you have got hope then you have got a chance."

Send a story

Advertising Department

Trinity Mirror Merseyside, the Echo's parent company, is one of the North West’s largest multimedia providers reaching more than 900,000 adults every month.

The Liverpool Echo, Trinity Mirror Merseyside’s flagship brand, is the area’s best-read newspaper including national newspapers.

The Liverpool Echo reaches 1 in 3 people in the area with a daily readership of more than 256,000* people.The Liverpool Echo website reaches 1.5 million unique users each month who look at around 8.5 million pages**.

The Editor

Alastair Machray

Alastair Machray was appointed editor of The Liverpool Echo in 2005 and is also editor-in-chief of Trinity Mirror Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales. He is a former editor of The Daily Post (Wales and England) and editor-in-chief of the company's Welsh operations. Married dad-of-two and keen golfer Alastair is one of the longest-serving newspaper editors in the country. His titles have won numerous awards and spearheaded numerous successful campaigns.